Iqbol Mirzo

Iqbol Mirzo (born Iqboljon Mirzakarimovich Mirzaaliyev) was born on 1 May 1967 in the village of Qo‘shtegirmon in the Bag‘dod district of the Fergana region, into a family of teachers; he was one of six children. He attended School No. 19 in the Bag‘dod district, then studied Uzbek language and literature at a higher educational institution in Fergana, and did his military service in Tomsk in 1985–1987.

His poems began to appear in print in 1980. In 1992 he moved to Tashkent and worked as a journalist at the newspaper O‘zbekiston tabiati, then held senior posts at the weekly Vatan. From 1996 he worked at the National Television and Radio Company of Uzbekistan as a senior editor, deputy director and chief editor of a studio.

His first collection, “The Shape of the Heart” (Yurakning shakli), came out in 1993, followed by “The Heart”, “I Miss You”, “Do You Remember Me?”, “Selected Poems” and “My Songs”; many of his poems have become songs. The novella “Zarb” appeared in 2015, the novel “Bonu” in 2016 and a three-volume selection of his works in 2018. He also translated Edmond Rostand’s tragicomedy “Cyrano de Bergerac” into Uzbek.

As a playwright, his plays “Samarqand sayqali” (2016), “Alisherbek and Husayn” (2021) and “Usmon Nosir” (2022) have been staged. His books have also been published in Russian, Tajik and Turkmen.

He was deputy chairman of the Writers’ Union of Uzbekistan in 2006–2018. He was a member of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis from 2010 to 2020 and has been, since 2020, a deputy of its Legislative Chamber for the Liberal Democratic Party of Uzbekistan. In 2020 he received a PhD in philology.

He was awarded the “Shuhrat” medal (1999), the title People’s Poet of Uzbekistan (2005), the order “Fidokorona xizmatlari uchun” (2014) and the order “Mehnat shuhrati” (2025).